Time. Coming. Long. Put these in the appropriate order, and you'll get my reaction to this news. Nokia has announced that it is planning a major overhaul of the user interface to the Symbian operating system, still the most popular smartphone platform in the world.

Well, I think you partially answered your question as to why they are chanting "Symbian"--because it already has an enormous app catalog. It's just that up until now, it wasn't consolidated in any one place or easy for the average person to figure out how to find and install apps--but they're rectifying that with the Ovi Store (still very much a work in progress though).

Maemo is slowly catching up, but the next iteration will be the first with a capacitive screen, Qt interface and API, and fully-baked Ovi Store, so I think it'll be the first version really ready for mass consumption.

Btw: Their entire marketing strategy for Maemo is based on the concept of "one device". It's their better version of an iPhone. I don't think you should be hoping for them to dumb it down for other devices-- that would end in disaster.